


little bird

by theredhoodie



Category: Twilight (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Multi, Not a Love Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4391207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was less haunted by the Cullens than he was about fragile human girls with brown hair, a nervous smile and a <i>spark</i> that just didn’t exist in vampires. Life was fragile, he knew it every time he killed someone—women, for the most part, who reminded him of Bella.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little bird

**Author's Note:**

> I've no idea what this is/was? It just came to me a while ago, back when I was doing my usual end-of-spring-semester-Twilight-Saga-binge-watch. I wrote about 5 pages of this, forgot about it and picked it up again to finish.
> 
> I've always had a soft spot for Emmett, judge me if you will, and with a little agency, Bella could even be her own person! -gasp-
> 
> Big thanks to Jessie who I didn't even have to coerce into editing a Twilight fanfiction for me. She's the best beta ever!

"I'm not even sure it's legal."

Emmett smirked at the words as he and Rosalie flounced past the table. He smelled the new scent, heard the new fluttering heartbeat; everything about her reminded him of a bird. Scared, twitchy, and small—but in an endearing way.

He noticed the way Edward was reacting—tense, confused—instead and focused on that rather than the new girl.

#

Rosalie. His angel of death and crisp winters, vipers and thorns. Bella was different. She was a quiet fury like a rolling wave, a darkening sky. But she was light, too. Human, clumsy. The first time he smelt her blood, he was surprised at just how little control he had until Jasper sprang at her and he had something to distract himself with.

Copper tinged the air, bled into his senses. He and Rosalie held Jasper back and wrenched him outside. They took him far away. Emmett was grateful for the distance and sated his own hunger with bears' blood and earthquake-inducing sex once Alice arrived to take Jasper off his and Rosalie's hands.

#

The Cullens left Forks. He was distracted. Rosalie noticed. Emmett had never been a good liar.

"Go," Rose said gently, and although it pained her, it was masked by the years and experiences that had passed her by. "Figure yourself out."

A better part of him knew he should stay. He left anyway.

Siberia was frigid in the winter. He swore that his own skin cracked when he moved. He found a pretty girl with pale skin and long brown hair, talked with her in broken English, and came teeth-scraping-skin close enough to biting her.

But he didn't.

#

Through the grapevine, he learned Bella chose life and a wolf over death and a Cold One. Edward, selfish and dramatic Edward, exposed himself. The Volturi killed him immediately for it. Emmett watched from afar as his family gathered in a mock-funeral, dressed all in black. Emmett mourned as he kept his distance, not allowing himself to get close.

He didn't have a choice. Rosalie caught wind of him and followed him into town.

"Emmett!" she called, jogging after him at a normal, human pace. He paused on the nearly barren street, hands clenched at his sides, anger at Edward bubbling around the edges. "Emmett." This time her voice was softer.

He turned around. "What do you want, Rose?" The rain caught on her hair and skin; she was glowing in the gray light.

She was good at being cold, but Emmett could always, always see through that. "You came back. You heard about Edward." No response. "Carlisle is putting up a front but he's hurting. We're all hurting."

She stood in front of him, hand outstretched. There was still a glittering ring on her finger. Emmett took a step back, but she was persistent and wouldn't let him go. Wrapping her arms around him, she held onto him tightly, forcing him to stay. He didn't moved and, eventually, she stepped back. Tilting her head to look at him, she furrowed her eyebrows.

"What happened to you, Emmett?"

The winter had gotten into his bones.

#

He lay in a haze. What he wouldn't give to sleep and wake up. Blood stirred him, but he already drank so much. His mind was blinded with red. A nameless, faceless girl lay shattered next to him in pieces.

He knew they would label it a rogue animal attack. And they would be right; he felt like an animal, a monster, for what he'd done. He broke the cardinal rule of the Cullens; he was back to being just an undead McCarty.

He cleaned himself up the way a serial killer did, staining sink and shower with blood. Body washed, he looked at the mirror. His eyes swirled with tints of red, betraying him. A rumble started in his chest that may have been a sob if he remembered what that felt and sounded like, but he pushed it away until he felt a blank, empty nothingness take its place.

#

Washington soil sunk under his boots. It was overcast, raining heavily. He hunched his shoulders, hiding his face beneath a hood, walking streets he'd learned over a year ago. The Cullen house was empty.

It was a Sunday.

He ended up at the two-story white house with the red truck outside. Scents assaulted his senses. He distantly wondered if the Volturi were coming after him.

He stood there long enough for her to notice, open the front door, and squint outside at him.

"Emmett?" He'd forgotten what her voice sounded like.

"Hey," he said, every part of him frozen. Winter in his bones.

She hesitated in her socks, not wanting to step off the porch, and waved him up. "Come here," she said with light humor, as if he were a puppy she was trying to get to walk toward her. "Get up here."

He complied, walking mechanically up the walkway and steps. The moment he was close enough, she grabbed him by the arms and hugged him, burying her face in his damp chest, digging her soft, human fingers into the hard panels of his back muscles. He could feel her warmth as it radiated from her small, fragile body.

He hugged her in return after a pause, folding himself around her, holding her against him. He closed his eyes, imagining a million scenarios.

She wrenched herself free after too short a time and tugged him inside. "You're soaked, c'mon."

The door closed behind him. He took up so much space.

"Are you here about Edward?" she asked softly once they were standing in the kitchen. She was making herself tea.

Emmett swallowed, a reflex. "You know?" It had been a few months.

She nodded. "I tried to kill myself. Jacob saved me. It was the scariest moment in my life." She spoke the words with melancholy; the wounds obviously still fresh enough to  _hurt_.

His nonexistent heart seized up at the thought. It took everything he had not to break off the top of the chair he was resting his hand against.

"But, it was a wake up call. I'm more at peace now. I have control of my life. I don't feel like I'm just flailing around." She flashed him a wary smile.

They had never talked like this before. And Emmett was hardly talking anyway. "Are you and the wolf...?"

Bella shrugged a shoulder as the kettle shrieked. Emmett almost winced at the pitch. It was higher than he remembered. Flashes of a bloody broken girl danced before his eyes.

"It comes and goes. Still trying to figure it out." She moved more confidently now. Moments later she had a mug in hand and stood in front of him. Tiny human bird opposite marble bear.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Not that I'm happy to see you, but you don't seem like the visiting type."

He blinked. He had no right to be here. "It's nothing."

She scoffed and blew on her tea. "I told you about me. What about you? It's only fair."

He hesitated, ready to leave the house and never return. But he turned back around, defeat resting heavy on his shoulders, a new kind of coldness in his eyes. "I left the Cullens."

The shock was evident from her gasp to her widened eyes to her heartbeat. "What? Why?"

He couldn't tell her. The words would come all wrong. He didn't want to hurt her. "Me. Rosalie sent me away to get my shit together. It didn't work."

Bella frowned. "Why would she do that?"

"I killed someone."

No, no. This was all coming out wrong. Wrong words, wrong order.

She didn't take the cautious step back that he expected her to take. Instead, she put her cup down and moved  _toward_  him, placing her small warm hand over his larger, cold one. "Why? Was it an accident?"

He tightened his jaw. "No."

Fleeting fear flashed through her eyes but she stayed where she was. She  _stayed_. "Then why? What happened?"

He looked down at their hands. She shouldn't be touching him. "She reminded me of you."

The hand lifted away instantly, tucking into her folded arms, but she didn't step away. "Me?"

He blinked slowly, looking at his lonely hand and then at her. He looked directly at her. "I've been trying to forget you for a long time. But I could never shake you. I don't know why."

The unanswered question had ruined his life.  _He_  ruined his life. He needed her to know that she had nothing to do with it.

"Do you want to kill me?" Her voice was so small.

The thought made him feel sick. "What? Fuck. No." This is why he should have gone. Everything was coming out wrong. Was this the lasting impression he wanted to leave? "Bella, I...I would never want to hurt you." He could hurt her though. With his words, with his strength. He couldn't lie to her.

"Rosalie sent you away because of me." Statement. She knew what was going on. She was smarter than Edward ever gave her credit for.

"Yeah, she did. She was right to." He thought of turning himself over to the Volturi more than once. It was beginning to sound more and more like the best alternative the longer he stood there in her kitchen. "I should leave."

He moved then, all height and muscle, a monster in human skin.

"Emmett, wait." Bella skidded in front of him at the door. Standing on her toes, she tentatively rested her hands against his cheeks. "Don't go. It sounds like you've been alone for so long."

"I have." He gently took her wrists in his hand and lowered them. "I'm better off that way. I'm sorry that I came here."

He left before she could say anything. Surrendering to the Volturi was starting to seem preferable to the life he was living.

#

Standing on a cliff was surely one to promote the general idea of suicide. It would take more than a jump or fall from one hundred feet to kill him, however. He contemplated the idea; what could he do to exact the Volturi's revenge?

"You're really not thinking about taking a leap of faith, are you?" The voice behind him cut through his musing. It was not familiar.

Emmett narrowed his eyes at the horizon and twisted around. A woman, a vampire, stood there, hip shoved out, her fist resting there. Her skin was dark brown, her frame was tall, with shoulders broad cloaked in black leather. Her eyes shown red like his own were quickly becoming. He said nothing, his usual closed lippedness coming into play.

"You've been hunting on my territory," she said once she realized he wasn't going to speak.

He shifted his weight, the ground creaking below his feet. "I didn't know this territory was taken," he replied.

She tilted her head to the side, pausing for mere seconds before grinning. "It's not, actually. I was just messing with you." She flicked back dark hair from her face. "No one's claimed this place. It's nice, huh?" She walked forward and joined him, the toes of her boots reaching the very edge of the cliff. She looked out over the expanse of trees below. "Did you kill that bear? I found a bear out there. They usually don't die violently."

He shifted around to look over the trees. "That was me."

"Hmm. Do you usually kill bears?"

Emmett crossed his arms. "Often. I used to be on a vegetarian diet."

"No shit." Her thick sculpted eyebrows rose toward her hairline. "I'm Daysha. You got a name?"

She offered no last name, which worked perfectly fine for him. "Emmett."

She said nothing about the Cullens, so either she didn't know of them or put the names together, or she was keeping those thoughts to herself. Falling off the bandwagon wasn't something to be proud of, especially when he tried so hard to keep himself on track for Carlisle and Rose's sakes.

"Well, nice to meet you, Emmett. Wanna get outta here, grizzly killer?"

"It was a brown bear," he corrected.

She smirked and looked over at him. "Sure." She took a step off the cliff.

#

He wasn't a merciless killer. Daysha had a bloodier past than his own. She terrorized her home country of Nigeria, gaining a mythical reputation. He didn't hate killing, but he didn't love it either. They spent weeks, months even, moving around Europe and Asia. Once, in Germany, he thought he spotted Rosalie. He spent the next two weeks  _moping_ , feeding more than necessary, bickering with Daysha.

She didn't take any of his shit, much like Rosalie. She wasn't love, but she was company.

He was less haunted by the Cullens than he was about fragile human girls with brown hair, a nervous smile and a  _spark_  that just didn't exist in vampires. Life was fragile, he knew it every time he killed someone—women, for the most part, who reminded him of Bella.

Did he think that if he killed enough girls who looked like her, she would become dead to him and he could move on? Or was he even more like the devil than Edward?

The final straw came when he reached so far into the monster that he had completely lost himself.

His mouth was red with blood, his body thrumming with stolen life, giving him a high that he was sure no human drug, natural or chemical, could offer. He was drunk and high and out of his body entirely, the body that was once a woman lying near him. He sprawled out, eyes hooded, wondering when Daysha would find him.

And then it happened.

A small person, a child, crawled out from the darkness, eyes wide, staring at the bloody mess of its mother, and the beast who had ripped the life from her throat.

"Momma?"

His lips parted, causing blood to explode across his tastebuds. All of the life in him was suddenly revolting, sickening, disgusting.

Daysha burst through the door. Emmett sluggishly got to his feet. Blood was supposed to exhilarate, but he felt like he had gorged enough to burst.

He couldn't watch.

"I can't believe this," Daysha said, after a run, miles away. "I cannot fucking believe this."

He couldn't either. He nearly collapsed into a rushing river. The current was nothing to him. It drenched him, but it couldn't wash the blood away. He peeled off his shirt and let the river take it away. He scrubbed his hands on rocks to the point where they should have bled.

"I can't do this shit any longer," Daysha said louder.

Emmett hauled himself out of the water. She stood with her hands on her hips, a smear of red across her face, looking black in the fading light of day.

"I can't either," Emmett said, his voice a low rumble.

"I've lived centuries and yet two years with  _you_  and I'm about ready to throw myself at the feet of the Volturi to end myself."

Daysha never took any of his shit. This wasn't love. He kept telling himself that. His heart had hardened long before now.

"Then go, leave. I can't do  _this_  anymore. I need to get clean."

Daysha stared at him. Dark hair, red eyes, perfectly sculpted chest, shoulders, arms, hands…he wasn't worth her time. They both knew it.

"You're some kind of colossus titan I have no intention of freeing from the depths of whatever hell you've dug yourself into."

They were her last words to him.

#

Carlisle. He watched him from the distance. He had found a new hospital. Emmett didn't see Alice or Jasper in town. He wasn't looking for them, nor did he think of going out of his way to find them, but he wondered where they were if not here, and if they had left.

He could easily drop down from his perch and catch Carlisle in the hall. It would be so  _easy_. He was the only one who could help him now. Emmett always had the least amount of self control, no matter how long it had been since he went  _vegetarian_. Even Jasper wasn't as bad as he was, but no one said anything about it.

Instead, he watched Esme arrive in a car. A pang of sadness stabbed deep into his heart. He thought of what he had, of what he'd given up. And for what?

He dropped heavily onto the ground, and disappeared.

#

Washington was just as unwelcoming as he'd remembered. He spent days searching for her, following her from a distance, unsure if he would be able to control himself.

He knew he couldn't.

Moving as far away from wolf territory as possible, he sated his hunger, his eyes now a bright red.

He hated it.

#

It had been years, years that didn't touch Emmett, but that definitely showed on Bella. She no longer was clumsy, or awkwardly thin. She had grown into her human bod— she even dressed in things other than jeans and t-shirts.

He caught her scent across the parking lot. He closed his eyes, remembering the first time he'd officially met her, in that house in the woods that was still vacant years later.

He moved quickly, unaccustomed to pretending to be human.

"Bella." His voice sounded grating, cold, not at all the way he used to sound.

She turned at the sound of her voice and nearly dropped the phone in her hand when her eyes found him.

"Oh my god," she said. Her eyebrows rose, her pulse quickened. "Emmett…I…wow, hi." She moved toward him, to embrace him. He took a step back, and she stopped, reading his signal well enough.

He was dangerous. She remembered.

"Hi," she said again. "Are you okay?"

How terrible did he look? Was he unrecognizable? He wondered if she was too polite to comment on his eyes.

"I've been better," he said honestly, each word feeling like it was being wrenched from his gut.

Her expression of surprise softened. "Tell me that you don't want to kill me," she said. The words were spoken quietly, almost a whisper, though he heard her perfectly. Her expression didn't change.

He almost fled. His jaw muscles clenched. Flashes of dozens of women with brown hair, dead at his feet, encircled him from within, playing over and over again like a video on repeat.

"I don't want to kill you, Bella," he replied after a beat.

How he must have looked. Did he look like James, that tracker that almost killed Bella, the one that Emmett and Jasper had killed? She couldn't just ignore his eyes and their tainted color.

She pulled out her keys from her bag. There was a small wooden wolf hanging off a chain. "Do you want to come back with me?"

She looked so hopeful. She was vibrant in a way a vampire never could be. The scattered breaths, the flush of blood under the skin, the constant twitches and movements of her body.

Melancholy seeped into the marrow of his cold, cold bones.

"I can't go onto the reservation," he said, lifting his hand and waving his fingers at his eyes. They betrayed his diet and caused more trouble than they were worth.

"Oh, shit, you're right." She paused, biting down on her bottom lip before snapping to attention. "Do you want to go to Charlie's? He and Sue are outta town for a week. Fishing trip."

He hesitated.

"The house will be empty, come on." She smiled at him almost playfully. As if she didn't care that he drank humans for food. "I take it you didn't drive here." She waved her keys toward the truck that he'd seen earlier, the one she was heading toward when he called her.

"You still have this heap of scrap?"

"Hey…don't diss the truck. She's been through a lot."

He shrugged and got inside. The cab was relatively large, but he was bigger. He hadn't ridden in a vehicle in a long time.

In fact, he hadn't taken one here. He had trekked across northern Russia, swam to Alaska, and came down from the north. He was sure that he would slaughter everyone onboard an airplane if he took one.

#

"It's been a while since your last visit." The truck was loud, but he could hear her perfectly.

"Yeah," he said. So many things had happened. He had done terrible, savage things.

"I live on the reservation still," she said, though he knew that already. "I've been going to college in California. I only just got back a few days ago."

"College," he repeated.

"I…I just graduated actually."

He didn't realize. Time passed so different for him. "Congratulations." The happy word felt hollow.

"Jacob and I have been seeing each other, I guess you could say. It's difficult…the tribe isn't against marrying outside of the Quileutes but it's still not that simple."

Emmett had lost his wedding ring years ago. It wasn't the first one he'd had and he rarely wore it except between the times when he and Rose were pretending to be high school students.

"Dad and Sue have been seeing each other for so long, they're practically married.  _Practically_ ," Bella emphasized, glancing over at him. No playful jesting was seeping out of him like usual. He wasn't himself. Or rather, he was not the self she was used to seeing.

"Have…have you been alone all this time?"

Emmett blinked out of surprise. "No. I met someone." It wasn't love. It was hardly companionship. It was more like a business arrangement. They traveled and killed and fucked—and look where it landed him. "She left."

"I'm sorry."

She had no idea. Emmett had the urge to begin laughing, though he had a feeling that once he started, he wouldn't be able to stop.

The white house came into view. It was oddly familiar.

He towered over her as they walked up the steps and inside as he ducked under doorways. He couldn't fold himself  _in_ , he just  _was_.

"Do you, um…" she trailed off on her way to the kitchen. "I was going to ask you if you wanted anything to drink." She laughed, though he could smell her nervousness, the upbeat measure of her heart.

He didn't breathe. He couldn't stand her humanness attacking him. Not when he was feeling like this.

"I…" So much happened, how could he even explain it to her? She had no idea what it was like to be what he was.

"Emmett?"

He must have been quiet for long enough to cause concern. He saw her in front of him, small, with birdlike intensity and fragility.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She's grown so much since that quiet frail girl he first met. She found herself during the time he was gone. She was her own person. She wasn't Edward's, she wasn't his. She was her own.

How could that have happened?

"I think I need help."

"Help?" She touched him. Simply a hand on his wrist. He could practically feel the blood rush under her skin. He didn't crave her blood the way Edward did, but he would be lying if it didn't call to him even a little.

"Emmett, are you—"

Her words cut off. His own world shook and moved. He landed on his knees in such a human gesture of fatigue that it shocked him into silence. Here he was on his knees, begging for forgiveness, but unable to get the words out.

"Okay, you need help," she said quickly. She reached out her hand, fingers tentatively brushing through his hair. It was softer than it looked.

"I need help. And forgiveness. Strength that I don't have."

"Emmett." Bella's hands, warm, small, human, lifted his face, blood-red eyes and all. "You're the strongest person I know."

It was all too much. But he didn't run. Instead, he leaned forward, clutching at her small frame with his hands, pressing his face against her stomach, hearing every bit of everything that made her human working inside. The throbbing of her heart, the rush of blood through veins, every tiny sound of kidneys straining nutrients, lungs constricting and pushing air in and out…everything. His eyes fluttered closed.

He was careful, made sure he didn't hold her too tightly. She wasn't Rose…she was human, and that meant she was easily breakable.

#

Her old bedroom was small. It was even smaller with Emmett inside of it. She had spent the night coddling him. Stroking his face, murmuring words of encouragement, asking him to tell her everything…but he couldn't tell her everything.

There was no way she would keep him here if she knew.

He was a master at mammoth mistakes; it was in his nature. He didn't know how he would ever get back in track.

Rehabilitation wasn't as easy for a vampire as it was for a human. There were no drugs to help, there were no textbooks written about human blood withdrawal.

"It will be fine, everything will be fine." Bella whispered the words to him until she fell asleep.

Emmett wished he could sleep. He closed his eyes, listened to her breathing, holding onto her like she was a pillow. His arms easily fit around her. He rested his head against her abdomen. The rise and fall was comforting more than a feather-filled sack could ever be.

He took a breath every one and a while. He caught scents of her, faint scents still lingering of Edward and of Jacob. It was amazing how long scents could linger.

#

Time meant nothing.

He didn't dream.

He thought. He thought of the women he'd killed—girls, really. He thought of how many of them had children like the last.

He thought of Daysha, how useless he had been to her. He was lagging behind someone like her, the same way he never deserved someone like Rosalie.

A monster like himself didn't belong with the likes of angels.

#

He knew she was awake before she started stroking his hair with her fingertips. He could hear her breathing grow faster, the blood beginning to run quicker.

"How do you feel now?" she asked, voice husky from a few hours sleep. She knew from experience that he would be awake, that he would hear her.

"I feel like I should be crying," he said honestly. "I haven't been able to in almost a century but it feels like the right moment."

Bella frowned into the darkness. Her hands paused their smooth motions.

He dreaded her next words before they came.

"Have you spoken to Carlisle?" she asked. She whispered the words as if that would make it any harder for him to hear.

Emmett squeezed his eyes shut, reminding himself not to squeeze  _her_  as well before untangling his limbs from hers and sitting up. His broad, muscled back was toward her, creating more of a wall between them than was already there.

"How can I?"

"How can you?" Bella sat up as well. Her hands found his shoulders. "Emmett, he loves you. You're a part of his family. Do you think you're the first one to run off for a while? I know that Edward did…I'm sure that Alice and Jasper have."

She didn't mention Rosalie. Was that on purpose?

"He wants to help all vampires, remember? He would love to see you again. To help you through this."

"I was never very good even the first time around," Emmett said. "I slipped up the most. Even more so than Jasper."

"It's hard. I can't imagine what you're going through." She ran her hands over the fabric of his shirt, the warmth reaching his skin; hard, marble, unbreakable. If only his mind was so easily barricaded from the remnants of being human.

He looked out of her window, spotting stars in the sky. With his eyes, they weren't merely dots—they were starbursts.

"I don't know how to help you on my own," Bella told him softly, pressing her cheek against his back. The stark difference between their temperatures was something she must be used to.

He wasn't so accustomed. Not in this situation, not like this. He was used to feeling warmth only after violence, after death.

She was right. Carlisle was the one he needed to turn to. But he would practically be quarantined, kept away from humans for a long while as he battled the withdrawal symptoms: the bloodlust, the burning of his brain, his throat…could he go through that again?

"You came to me," Bella said after the silence had stretched thin. She placed a delicate kiss on his skin, above the curve of the collar of his shirt.

She was playing a dangerous game. He wasn't sure she knew just how tempting she was.

"That says something. You want help. I can find Carlisle for you." She rested her chin against his shoulder. He hardly felt it. "I'll tell him what's happened. You can go get help. You can do this if you really want it."

He furrowed his eyebrows into the expanse of her room. "I know where Carlisle is."

"Good. You need to go to him. Not for his sake, or mine, or anyone else's but your own, Emmett."

He turned then, quicker than he realized. She flinched, but righted her expression immediately after.

She wasn't afraid of him. He'd be able to smell it if she was.

"Tell me you don't want to kill me," she said, echoing herself from hours earlier in the parking lot. There was something new in her tone, something new in her face. Something bright and determined.

He lifted a hand. She was so small compared to him, her face dwarfed by his hand. Cool fingers slid over the warm, flushed flesh of her cheek.

She was so much more than she knew.

"I don't want to kill you," he said again. He meant it. That was no longer the forefront of his mind.

No amount of killing would wash away his thoughts, his feelings, or his past.

Her hands, delicate, but strong in a totally different way than his own, lifted; one curled around his wrist. The other reached for his face, brushing a thumb under his eye. She said nothing to excuse their color. She accepted it, for now at least.

"You should kiss me, if you think you can," she whispered. She wasn't a teenager any longer, but if she remembered anything from her time with the Cullens, she would know that he was going away for a long time.

He hoped this wasn't just because of that. He chose to believe that this was a long time coming.

"I don't want to kill you," he said again, an assurance to her, a reminder to himself.

He was not the monster that life made him.

He could be better.

He almost forgot how to be soft, but Bella was human enough for the both of them.

The kiss was both cold and warm, soft but hard, until it wasn't.

"I won't kill you," he insisted, kissing her again.

Breathless. He left her breathless. It was purely for physical reasons. He didn't need to breathe, but she did.

"Good," she said softly, hiking herself up on her knees and planting a soft, lingering kiss on the corner of his mouth.

She separated herself from him then, scooting off the bed and getting to her feet.

It left him cold.

"We need to get you to Carlisle."

#

She watched him go.

He had her phone number in his pocket—"For when you're strong enough to go outside again, or if you need to talk to someone"—and her scent clinging to his clothes. Her kisses lingered on his lips and on the palm of his hand where she'd placed one right before he left her on the porch, clutching a shawl around her shoulders.

He almost didn't make it to Carlisle.

He almost went back to Russia.

_Almost_.

But he squeezed the paper in his pocket and headed back to where he had seen Carlisle last.

It was easy to follow the vampires to their home.

It wasn't so easy to face Rose. She almost attacked him before realizing who he was.

She blanched at his red eyes.

Carlisle was welcoming, just like Bella had said.

#

Time moved differently for him.

There were days when he wanted to rip his head clear off his body. He wanted to end the endless bouts of misery.

But then he remembered Bella.

She never lied to him.

She was human. She aged.

They talked on the telephone, the only safe distance for them to be in contact.

Whatever happened that day, it had been a first and a last.

"I'll always be your friend, Emmett."

_I'll always have feelings for you. I'll always remember kissing you._

"Jacob and I are getting married."

_It's not easy. The pack doesn't fully trust me because of my history with the Cold Ones._

"Be strong for me."

_You are the strongest person I know_.

#

He would never be with Rose again. Not in this century. Maybe not ever.

He would never be with Bella again. Not in that way. Not when she had a husband, not when she had  _children_.

When he finally visited, she would look nothing like he remembered. She would hug him for a little too long, say his name in a way that meant that they were something other than  _friends_.

And he would be forever the same.

Harsh, chiseled marble. Always on the verge of retreating back into a vicious beast.

That part of him was eternal.

#

Numerous grizzly, brown, and black bears turning up dead was a good sign.

#

He wasn't allowed on the reservation.

He waited until there was a human holiday and descended upon Charlie Swan's home in Forks. He stood at the doorway, the same one where nearly fifteen years ago Bella Swan had told him he was brave and strong and kissed his palm before letting him go.

He knocked and waited.

He could hear numerous heartbeats behind the door, smell many people, human and wolf both.

The door was wrenched open.

Silence was nothing new to Emmett.

Her lips parted. She looked up, and up, at him, with the same unguarded, hopeful, unyielding eyes.

The winter in his bones seemed to thaw instantly.

He had underestimated human aging.

He still recognized her.

"Emmett?"


End file.
